Reeling from the fallout of the latest “Just a Deputy” letter that exposed some of the union’s dirtiest secrets, the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs (ALADS) is scrambling to save face. Their latest newsletter was less an update than an act of damage control, an attempt to spin a humiliating 0% raise into the illusion of ongoing negotiations.
The August 14th “Contract Negotiations Update” painted a rosy picture for the rank and file. It claimed talks were still active, that ALADS bargaining team had crafted a counteroffer, and that a joint session with the county was set for August 21. The language was carefully chosen to project momentum, even dangling the possibility of “upward progress” in pay. In reality, it was a manufactured narrative designed to make deputies believe the fight wasn’t already lost.
The truth is that by the time the newsletter went out, the Board of Supervisors had already finalized the county budget, leaving no room for raises. Negotiations were over before they began. ALADS knew it, yet chose to sell the illusion.
The backdrop makes this deception even more glaring. The newsletter included a link to Sheriff Robert Luna’s March 7th letter to the County CEO – sent almost six months earlier – showing the department’s dismal outlook under Luna’s failed leadership.
The letter followed the February 6th federal conviction of Deputy Trevor Kirk, a case Luna himself handed over to federal prosecutors after caving to activist outrage. Kirk had deployed the lowest category of force – pepper spray – against a black female robbery suspect who resisted arrest. But activists and the media reframed the incident through the lens of race, turning a straightforward use-of-force case into a civil rights firestorm. Rather than standing by his deputy, Luna capitulated, referring the case to the feds (under the Biden Administration) who pursued the case as a felony civil rights abuse under color of authority.
Deputies across the department saw it for what it was: their Sheriff throwing one of their own to the wolves to appease political pressure. The conviction sparked widespread fury and culminated in a boycott of the Baker to Vegas relay, where deputies staged a silent but unmistakable protest in solidarity with Kirk.
In his March letter, Luna pleaded for an additional $69 million in funding to stabilize a department spiraling from his own decisions. He acknowledged the mass exodus of deputies leaving the ranks, citing recruitment and retention problems as if they weren’t the direct result of his leadership. Luna also dangled the mysterious “STARS Retirement Program”, an unheard of program, as part of his pitch for more money.
The letter was less about planning for the department’s future and more about political damage control.
Against that backdrop, ALADS’ August newsletter reads like a bad joke. Deputies were led to believe that contract talks were still moving forward when, in reality, the raises they needed had already been erased from the budget. The result: a department battered by attrition, betrayed by its Sheriff, and misled by its union.
The union’s duplicity doesn’t end there. For months, whistleblowers have accused ALADS leadership, particularly President Rich Pippin, of colluding with Luna and undercutting the very deputies they are supposed to represent. In the widely circulated anonymous “Just A Deputy” letter, Pippin was accused of shutting down a vote of no confidence in Luna despite overwhelming support for it. At a Lancaster briefing, when deputies pressed for the vote, Pippin reportedly brushed it aside as “no gain,” a move that left the rank and file silenced and abandoned.
When the whistleblower letter was published by The Current Report, ALADS didn’t respond with transparency or accountability. Instead, it unleashed a cease-and-desist letter in an attempt to muzzle investigative coverage.
The heavy-handed tactic only confirmed what many deputies already suspected: ALADS is more interested in controlling the narrative and protecting its leadership, than in securing fair pay or representing its members.
Behind the staged optimism of perpetual “negotiations” to deflect criticism, lies a union scrambling to contain the fallout of betrayal.
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